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Patriot Act
Patriot Act worries: # The Patriot Act is a threat to personal freedom. # The Patriot Act gives cover to career politicians for even bigger government. Citizens and local governments must push back. The Patriot Act's expansion of government search, seizure and detainment powers while limiting the constitutional safeguards of due process is alarming. Federal power over state and local communities has been growing in matters ranging from medical care to property rights to education. Pittsburgh Bill of Rights Defense Campaign * The board of the County's Libertarian Party (LP-Pgh) unanimously called on Pittsburgh City Council to pass this resolution supporting the Bill of Rights in the aftermath of the USA Patriot Act. Message to Congress, and to our former Governor and Homeland Security Director, Tom Ridge: Enough is enough. Links * Libertarian Press Release aims to fight US Patriot Act Insights Patriotic limits: A judge makes a wise ruling on access to records : September 09, 2007, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815608-35.stm The decision by a federal judge to strike down part of the revised USA Patriot Act is another chapter in the crossfire of actions by the Bush administration ostensibly to keep Americans safe, and efforts by courts to preserve Americans' freedoms. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled unconstitutional the part of the statute, revised in 2005, that the Bush administration has been using to defend its practice of sending so-called "national security letters" to Internet service providers, telephone companies and public libraries. The documents require the recipients to turn over to the FBI records of an American citizen using their services, without that person's knowledge. The FBI has sent out such letters on the records of thousands of people. The ruling required that such government action be subject to judicial review, or follow from a grand jury subpoena. That part of the Patriot Act, Judge Marrero said, "offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers." The Justice Department is expected to appeal the ruling. His decision follows a series of actions by the administration and Congress that have attacked Americans' freedoms of speech and privacy in the name of keeping them safe, and court decisions that see those measures as unnecessary infringements on civil rights. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Defense Department, the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies have sought more and more information about Americans through laws such as the Patriot Act. The courts, in general, have sought to preserve various freedoms to communicate, without the support of the Justice Department under Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. The argument in the administration's appeal will no doubt be that unimpeded, unmonitored security agency access to Internet, telephone and library records is essential to preserving security. This call is a matter of judgment, turning on some government officials' assessment of what makes Americans safer. It is also, fortunately for the preservation of civil liberties, a matter of constitutionality. Judge Marrero's ruling took that into account. The way we read the Constitution, the judge was correct and his ruling should stand.